In the past two weeks I have:1– Defended my dissertation
Thanks in part to the extra experience I got giving presentations during my graduate student career, this was not a big deal for me. I rather enjoyed it, but I wish I had more time (I ‘shortened’ my presentation to 73 slides. :-/ ).

2– Made corrections to my dissertation
Luckily, I had no major re-writes, it was just a lot of typos/grammar/formatting I had to fix. If you have ever read ERV, this is not a shock to you.

3– Moved across the country.

Me: *sick of packing* Lets just burn everything.

Partner: Hahaha!

*over 9000 hours later*

Partner: Lets just burn everything.

I am never doing this again.

4– Started new job.
Love it. So happy. I cant believe I get paid to do this stuff.

Things should be settling down and getting back to normal at ERV. I will have ~20 minute bus ride to/from work every day, and my bro/sis-in-law are upgrading their tablets and gifting me one of their old ones with cellular data, so I can blag on my way to/from work!

BRB!

— ERV, Ph. D.

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Comments

Congratulations and I’m looking forward to reading all of your pent up blag (sic) material – you are one of my favorites here. I got my PhD (Physics) in 1974, believe me you still have a long strange trip ahead.

* I figured you threw blag in there just to make your point about editing.

Congratulations from another internet stranger! I too am looking forward to the crazy, jam-packed world of “write-defend-revise-graduate?[findajob]-pack-move” in the next few months. It’s nice to know it’s survivable! Best of luck in your new world…

Sannica– START NOW. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD START NOW. The basics of your field arent going to change, get started on your intro! And start job hunting! Most PIs are totally flexible with the ‘Well I havent graduated yet but I hope to defend in ___’ position. That is normal. The people I know who waited to start seriously hunting until after they graduated were/are *very* stressed out. Ask your PI if any of their PI friends are looking for someone, too. Your PI knows you the best, and will know if you would fit well with those folks, and it might give you an ‘in’ on some positions before they are officially advertised.

biopunk– When I got to 100, I realized it wasnt going to happen, and I stopped adding/started cutting from there :-/

fusilier– Arnie was freaked out at first (two days of driving in the car, he had to ride in the front seat because the back seat was loaded). But he LOVES IT HERE. We are renting a house with a yard (no more apartment), there are people walking by with dogs every five minutes, trees and squirrels and new smells EVERYWHERE– he is *happy* 😀

I also finished my PhD and had my viva (minor corrections) last week… Now I’m lecturing for my university, thinking about new virology/host-path interaction projects, and teaching comparative genomics. Going to send out your blogs to my students for both the courses I teach as some Christmas reading!

Chiming in really late, but congratulations! I know how much work you had to put in to get this.

How do I know? Well, it’s the reason I’m chiming in late: my wife just successfully defended her dissertation today! Some edits (mos of which she caught prepping for the defense), but nothing outrageous. I’ve had to spend so much time in a support role that I had cut way back on following ScienceBlogs. But finally, after 16 years (though that includes getting the master’s degree), she’s getting her doctorate.